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Sunday, 25 August 2013

Arsene Wenger's boys came through yesterday. Good show after last weekend's debacle in the season opener against Aston Villa. Played as we all know they can. We need to earn the respect of the other clubs so they dread the "versus Arsenal" fixture like they used to when they looked at their fixtures calenders. Only by showing some steel. Only be going through a more than ordinary run of wins. We must build on the victory at Fulham.

Nobody is afraid of Arsenal any more. Nobody ever won championships by not evoking fear amongst the mid to bottom table teams at the very least. Every rat believes they can earn all the the points in the Arsenal fixture these days. That needs to be reversed now! Consistency has to be the watchword from here on. It's the hard way -it's the only way.

Hopefully, we will bring in at a minimum, that defensive midfielder we all know we need before the market shuts...only eight days left...
Don't see many teams that will let a top player leave now and go through searching for a suitable replacement before deadline day. Not the kind of quality that will appease Arsenal fans. I suspect strongly that we have been had once again. There isn't going to be any marquee signing as marquee signings go. The £70m that was bandied around so early in the transfer window by Gazidis has proved to be another illusion.

For another season, we've been sold a phantom "war chest". One that never gets spent. One that doesn't get carried into the next season when it isn't spent because the "right quality" was not available for it to be spent on. If we carried every war chest we were told about that didn't get spent into the next season, bidding £50m for Suarez would have been a breeze, wouldn't it?

There will be no marquees; not the £40m plus variety. At worst we may just have to make do with Flamini on a free and at best some obscure youngster itching to get away from the French division one and recognises that Arsenal could be a good stepping stone to loftier dreams. A player whose club can really do with the £8m to £14m that AFC's valuation of players is usually limited to.

No there isn't likely to be a marquee. We'll get Flamini and be happy about it if I may add. We have to brace up for this scenario. The sooner we come to terms with that, the less pain we will have to endure as the clock runs down on transfer deadline night on September 2.

Nice one, boys. Let's finish off Fenerbahçe on Tuesday and no one can accuse you of not putting in your shift. Let's watch and see how Gazidis, Wenger and the club's hierarchy aid your cause...

Monday, 19 August 2013

It's over 48 hours since I watched us lose our opening game of the season at home to Aston Villa. Enough time to lose all the vitriol and invectives that I might have used if I had made the attempt to analyse what exactly went wrong at the Emirates last Saturday. A game that started so brightly with Giroud scoring in the fifth from a trademark Arsenal breezing move ended with Villa thumping us 3-1.

Pundits and analysts alike have taken the game to bits to understand how it all went awry so I won't waste too much time on that. The referee on the day was blamed for some of it. Szcezney's tizzy goal-keeping got some of it and our defence line's inability to contain Agbonlahor got some but most of the blame was contained in a small square placard held up by an angry fan as the game wound down. It simply read, "SPEND SOME FUCKING MONEY!"